NEWM 2001 aligned curriculum

Lecturer: Cathie Summerhayes, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies in the School of Humanities
Course: NEWM2001
Used with permission -- thanks, Cathie!

Download this page as worksheets:
Worksheet 1 (pdf, 64 KB)
Worksheet 2 (pdf, 88 KB)

GEND1001, Helen Keane (Gender Studies)

ITAL 3016, Piera Carroli (Language Studies)

This page gives you Cathie's original course descriptions and learning outcomes and then shows you how we re-worked things into a more aligned curriculum. The bits in red indicate comments made by the educational designer.

Cathie's original course description
This interdisciplinary course is one of four compulsory core units in the Bachelor of Arts (New Media Arts) degree.

It builds on Media Cultures 1 to critically address a range of concepts and media practices that have a long tradition in the arts but which are now changing in the context of digital technologies and new media art. These changes are crucial to our understanding of both creative artistic practice and broader systems of communication in contemporary society. The course focuses particularly on new media's cinematic heritage, its use of remediation in form and content, as well as its manipulation of memory as emotion and as database, and its integration of live and virtual modes of performance through computer-generated simulation and immersion technologies. In addition, the course also aims to explore the current lively debates on narrative structures in the new media arts. A screening or on-line activity each week will provide a grounded example for exploring these exciting ideas and practices.

Cathie’s original learning outcomes
On satisfying the requirements for this course students will have a more in-depth knowledge of both analytic approaches to the analysis of texts and creative practice in new media and a deeper knowledge of such texts and the academic literature in the field. These skills will constitute a development of those acquired in Media Cultures 1. On completion of this course, students will be equipped with the knowledge of how to research and analyse media texts and practice in the area of new media studies.

Cathie’s original assessment

The re-worked curriculum outline

Here is how Cathie re-worked her original NEWM2001 learning outcomes so that they more closely aligned with her intended assessment. You’ll see from the bits in red that it was still a work in progress, giving you some idea of how lecturers can work with an educational designer.

Cathie's course description actually contained information that was more relevant to learning outcomes, so you’ll notice that the revised outcomes are based on the original course description. The revised learning outcomes are much more specific and focused than are the original outcomes, and they're presented in numbered-point form, which makes things easier to read. The course description was re-written to reflect course content a bit more. Cathie also re-worked her assessment to reflect what she wanted the students to have learnt (i.e., the learning outcomes) by the end of the course.

Cathie's revised course description

Cathie -- perhaps re-write the description to concentrate more on the course content rather than the learning outcomes?

Cathie’s revised learning outcomes
By the end of this course, you should be able to

1. Explain the ways in which a range of 'traditional' concepts and media practices are changing in the context of digital technologies and new media art.
2. Critique the ways in which these changes influence our understanding of both creative artistic practice and broader systems of communication in contemporary society.
3. Assess the ways in which new media's cinematic heritage, and its use of remediation in form and content, manipulate memory as emotion and as database.
4. Evaluate the ways in which computer-generated simulation and immersion technologies integrate live and virtual modes of performance.
5. Research, select, combine and integrate materials on narrative structures in the new media arts and present them in a coherent fashion in a team environment.

Cathie’s revised assessment proposal

GEND1001, Helen Keane (Gender Studies)

ITAL 3016, Piera Carroli (Language Studies)